Edward Wilson
Edward Wilson (13 November 1813 – 10 January 1878) was an English-Australian journalist and philanthropist.
Edward Wilson
Australasian Sketcher, February 16, 1878 · Public domain
- Born
- 1813 · Covent Garden.
- Died
- 1878 · Hayes.
- Nationality
- United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
- Occupation
- journalist · philanthropist · farmer · newspaper editor · cartoonist
- Languages
- English
Reference Check
Propose documentary evidence for Edward Wilson. A contribution is never written directly as fact: identity, source, rights and evidence gates still decide.
Sign in to contribute
Documentary evidence
Documentary basis
Authority files
wikidata · Q5345941
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
The documentary record
Statements marked “Documentary record” are set in the article beside the passage they confirm. Each is read from the authority records of the institutions named here; select “Prove” to see the record it was read from, where in that record, and when.
Institutions cited
Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
Complete reading chain (JSON)In this article
Family
Family
The second of the three children of John Wilson (1774–1834), a linen draper, and Mary Wilson (Jones; 1766–1838), Edward Wilson was born at Hampstead, London on 13 November 1813. He never married.
Documentary record
Edward Wilson, born in 1813 and died in 1878, is documented in the authority records of the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek. Both events are recorded by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.
Education
Education
He was educated at a "large private school" in Hampstead – where, among his schoolmates, were William Clark Haines (1810–1866), the first Premier of Victoria, the brothers James Spowers (1813–1879) and Allan Spowers (1815–1876), proprietors of The Argus, and Douglas Thomas Kilburn (1813–1871), the artist, ethnographer, and daguerreotypist. Having left school, with his parents wanting him to "engage in commerce", he entered a business house at Manchester, and subsequently went to London, involved in the "Manchester trade".
Australia
Australia
In 1842 he migrated to Australia. He bought The Argus around 1847. Costs of running the Argus had increased and Wilson was close to ruin, but was saved when Lauchlan Mackinnon bought a partnership from James Gill, and took over management.
Rambles at the Antipodes
Rambles at the Antipodes
In 1857 and 1858, he travelled throughout colonial Australia and New Zealand, and on to England – where he consulted experts in relation to his failing eyesight (due to cataracts) – via the "Overland Route"; and, whilst doing so wrote an extended series of 21 articles for The Argus newspaper. The articles, which were published on a regular basis (often three articles in a single week), were later collected together and published in their aggregate (with an additional statistical appendix, and 12 lithographs by Samuel Thomas Gill) in 1859, as Rambles at the Antipodes (1859).
Death
Death
• Illustration — Wilson's grave at Melbourne General Cemetery He died at Hayes, in Kent, on 10 January 1878. His remains were repatriated to Australia on the SS Aconcagua, and he was buried in the Melbourne General Cemetery, on 7 July 1878, in a grave that "is immediately opposite the burial place of Sir Charles Hotham".
Estate
Estate
The bulk of his estate was used to form the Edward Wilson Trust which since his death has distributed several million dollars to Victorian charities, in particular the Melbourne, Alfred and Children's hospitals in Victoria.
Works
Works
• Wilson, Edward (1856a), "The Aborigines", The Argus, (Sunday, 16 March 1856), pp.4-5. • Wilson, Edward (1856b), "The Aborigines", The Sydney Morning Herald, (Saturday, 22 March 1856), p.5: a better quality reprint of 1856a. • Wilson, Edward (1857a), "Moreton Bay. No.I", The Argus, (Saturday, 22 August 1857), p.4. • Wilson, Edward (1857b), "Moreton Bay. No.II", The Argus, (Saturday, 24 August 1857), p.5. • Wilson, Edward (1857c), "Moreton Bay (No.III)", The Argus, (Thursday, 27 August 1857), p.5. • Wilson, Edward (1858), "The Overland Route. No.VI", The Argus, (Monday, 18 October 1858), p.5. • Wilson, Edward (1857d), "A Trip down the Murray (No.I)", The Argus, (Tuesday, 24 November 1857), p.5. • Wilson, Edward (1857e), "A Trip down the Murray (No.II)", The Argus, (Thursday, 26 November 1857), p.4. • Wilson, Edward (1857f), "A Trip down the Murray (No.III)", The Argus, (Wednesday, 2 December 1857), p.5. • Wilson, Edward (1857g), "A Trip down the Murray (No.IV)", The Argus, (Saturday, 5 December 1857), p.5. • Wilson, Edward (1857h), "A Trip down the Murray (No.V)", The Argus, (Saturday, 5 December 1857), p.5. • Wilson, Edward (1857i), "A Trip down the Murray (No.VI)", The Argus, (Tuesday, 8 December 1857), p.5. • Wilson, Edward (1858a), "A Glance at New Zealand. No.I", The Argus, (Friday, 11 June 1858), p.5. • Wilson, Edward (1858b), "A Glance at New Zealand. No.II", The Argus, (Saturday, 12 June 1858), p.5. • Wilson, Edward (1858c), "A Glance at New Zealand. No.III", The Argus, (Monday, 14 June 1858), p.5. • (Wilson, Edward (1858d), "A Glance at New Zealand. No.IV") • Wilson, Edward (1858e), "A Glance at New Zealand. No.V", The Argus, (Friday, 18 June 1858), p.5. • Wilson, Edward (1858f), "The Overland Route. No.I", Supplement to The Argus, (Tuesday, 12 October 1858), p.1. • Wilson, Edward (1858g), "The Overland Route. No.II", Supplement to The Argus, (Wednesday, 13 October 1858), p.1. • Wilson, Edward (1858h), "The Overland Route. No.III", Supplement to The Argus, (Thursday, 14 October 1858), p.1. • Wilson, Edward (1858i), "The Overland Route. No.IV", The Argus, (Friday, 15 October 1858), p.6. • Wilson, Edward (1858j), "The Overland Route. No.V", Supplement to The Argus, (Saturday, 16 October 1858), p.1. • Wilson, Edward (1858k), "The Overland Route. No.VI", Supplement to The Argus, (Monday, 18 October 1858), p.5. • Wilson, E (1859), Rambles at the Antipodes: A Series of Sketches of Moreton Bay, New Zealand, the Murray River and South Australia, and the Overland Route: With two Maps and twelve Tinted Lithographs, illustrative of Australian Life, by S.T. Gill, London: W.H. Smith and Son.
Identity
Identity
Edward Wilson is recorded as journalist, philanthropist, farmer, newspaper editor and cartoonist.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 2 entries
1813
Edward Wilson born at Covent Garden.
1878
Edward Wilson died at Hayes.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Covent Garden.
Birth place
Hayes.
Death place
Text attribution
Licensing
Text attribution
Part of the biographical narrative on this page reuses licensed material. Its origin, revision and licence are recorded here.
The biographical narrative on this page is based on the Wikipedia article Edward Wilson (journalist), revision 1359847871 (EN edition), by its contributors. VALÉORINE has edited that text and built its own documentary record around it. The reused material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, and this page's reuse of it is offered under the same licence. Everything else on this page — the chronology, the holdings, the evidence, the plates and the connections — is VALÉORINE's own record. Sources and licences.
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Geoffrey. Serle. Wilson, Edward (1813–1878). wilson-edward-4866.
- 2.Anon (1878).
- 3.The first was published in August 1857 (Wilson, 1857a), and the last in October 1858 (Wilson, 1858k).
- 4.With (Wilson, 1857a,b,c) forming the first chapter, (Wilson, 1857d,e,f,g,h,i) the second chapter, (Wilson, 1858a,b.c,d,e) the third chapter, and (Wilson, 1858f,g,h,i,j.k) the fourth and last chapter.
- 5.(General News Items), The Argus, (Monday, 8 July 1878), p.5.
- 6."No.IV" was not published within the pages of the regular Argus, with those published jumping from "No.III" (14 June) to "No.V" (18 June). Given the accurate "verbatim/reprint" nature of the contents of Rambles at the Antipodes, the inescapable conclusion is that the missing article was published at page one of a (currently un-digitized by TROVE) Supplement to The Argus on 15, 16, or 17 June http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article7296252 as were each of 1858f, 1858g, 1858h, 1858j, and 1858k in the October of that same year and that the text of the missing article was identical to that which was later published in the aggregate volume (i.e., Wilson, 1859, pp.92-102).
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
reference work
Secondary witness
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 16 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Comics and comic art
9,920 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- Edward Linley SambourneArtist
- Edward Samuel GoodnowArtist
- Edward SorelArtist
- Edward Tennyson ReedArtist
- Edwin George LutzArtist
- Edwina DummArtist
- Eek & MeekSeries
- Eensy Weensy MonsterSeries
Best supported in this field
For owners
Own a work by Edward Wilson?
A specialist will read what you send and tell you what the house can establish, what it cannot, and whether the object is suited to sale. There is no charge and no obligation. The object stays with you throughout; nothing is shipped to us unless it is arranged in writing beforehand.